Digital Innovations in Malaysia Kim Kierans

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Media Programme Asia www.kas.de/mediaasia Asia’s Media Innovators by Stephen Quinn and Digital innovations in Malaysia Kim Kierans October 2010 – Decisions made almost two decades nities to attract audiences. But publishers Chapter Nine ago are showing significant returns in must incorporate the most compelling as- Malaysia as the country focuses on de- pects of the iPad to attract audiences. Oth- veloping digital technologies and inno- erwise publishers risk doing what they did vations. In 1996 then Prime Minister online when they shovelled content from Mahathir established the Multimedia the newspaper without understanding that Super Corridor (MSC) along the high- online requires a new form of journalism. way between the capital, Kuala Lum- “It’s the same with the iPad. The device pur, and the international airport to the needs a new way of thinking,” Koster said. south of the city. The MSC offered companies attractive tax breaks and excel- Publishers must not ignore the potential of lent facilities such as high speed Inter- the iPad. An iPad app must not simply net and proximity to the airport. In re- transfer pdf content from online. It must turn, Malaysia aimed to attract knowl- embrace all of the aspects that have made edge-based international companies to the iPad such a success: excellent still im- help develop domestic markets. Cyber- ages, crisp text, compelling audio and jaya, a planned city with a science park video, and elegant design that is easy to as its core, forms a key part of the MSC. navigate. To do this well requires talent and This city aspires to be seen as Malay- imagination, and a new approach to digital sia’s Silicon Valley. Cyberjaya officially storytelling. opened in May 1997. The unique selling points of the iPad are the That year the MSC had fewer than 300 IT potential to display rich text and magnifi- companies. Thirteen years later the number cent images, interactivity and the power of had grown to almost 2,600. More than multimedia for new forms of storytelling. 63,000 knowledge-based jobs have been “The aim of any iPad app is to allow audi- created, and almost RM820 million ($US ences to enjoy the content, and it must be 264 million) spent on research and devel- easy and intuitive for people to find and en- opment as of October 2010. The MSC had joy that content,” Koster said. He believes generated revenues of more than RM13 bil- that quality “got lost in the web era” and lion ($US 4.19 billion) as of the same date, the iPad gives publishers the chance to fo- and Malaysia’s ICT exports totalled more cus on quality again. People are more will- than RM5 billion ($US 1.61 billion) a year in ing to pay for iPad apps than for online con- 2009. tent, he said, provided the apps give “convenience, quality and a nice environment”. Building iPad applications for the world Woodwing Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of the Convenience refers to ease of use and intui- Dutch parent Woodwing Software, is one of tive navigation that shows off the content in the key international companies based in the simplest but most elegant way. The en- Cyberjaya. The parent company was vironment of an iPad app must be attractive founded in May 2000 and the Asia-Pacific in the sense that it appeals to audience aes- subsidiary in 2006. Remco Koster is the thetics. Images and video must be of the managing director and looks after a range highest quality, text must be crisp and easy of countries in the region, from Indonesia to read, and an orderly design is of para- and Australia in the south to China and Ja- mount importance. “Quality is that undefin- pan in the north. Koster believes the arrival able concept that audiences will pay for,” of the iPad offers publishers fresh opportu- Koster said. It was also important to appre- 2/9 ciate the power of appropriate text fonts. make mashed potato out of French fries in- Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung “Good type is so important on an iPad app.” stead of returning to the original potato. Media Programme Asia “Too many news companies think that tak- www.kas.de/mediaasia Koster described the iPad as an “accelerator ing the portable document format (pdf) of major change” for digital publishing. It from the web site and pushing it into an might also accelerate the demise of ink on iPad app is being creative. But it is still Asia’s Media Innovators paper. French fries [pdf]. It cannot be anything else.” Koster believes it is important to by Stephen Quinn and We need to pause here to discuss the eco- study successful iPad apps to discover what Kim Kierans nomics of print newspaper production. In works, and also to learn from failed apps. June 2009 a Moody’s senior analyst in New October 2010 – York, John Puchalla, said the American Woodwing has created a range of videos Chapter Nine newspaper industry spent too much of each about its apps at its YouTube site www.you- dollar on printing and distribution, and too tube.com/user/WoodWingSoftware. little on what sells newspapers: the content. Puchalla estimated 70 cents of each dollar were spent on paper, printing, distribution and corporate functions. Only 14 cents were spent on editorial content. The other 16 cents went to pay for advertising and mar- keting. Puchalla described the cost structure of the American newspaper industry as “distorted”. The New York Times, for example, spent $US 650 million in 2009 on printing and distribution, but less than a third of that amount – $US 200 million – on content. The Sales of the iPad have been extraordinary. company paid $US 65 million that year for In the first three months after the device newsprint. became available in 2010, Apple sold 3.27 million. A leading American market research Many Asian newspapers have the same company, iSuppli, expects Apple to sell “distorted” cost ratios. Devices like the iPad about 100 million iPads over the next three could help publishers reduce printing and years, if Apple can keep up with demand. distribution costs, and allow more to be Why do iPad owners love their devices? spent on content. For example, newspapers Portability and elegance top the list. Next is could give loyal readers – people who have the ease of wi-fi connectivity and the capac- subscribed for more than two years – an ity to read e-books and other digital docu- iPad or similar device in recognition of that ments, plus the versatility the wide variety loyalty. The device would be a status sym- of apps offer in terms of performing tasks bol and readers could keep the device while that save time and make life easy. Consum- they continued to subscribe. ers love finding new ways to interact with their iPad. We would argue that smart- But iPad content must involve more than phones like the iPhone have already taught transferring pdfs from the newspaper. Too a generation of users how swiping and other many iPad apps offered by major publishing multi-touch gestures work, and they have companies simply copy or emulate existing grown to appreciate the simplicity and ease or previous media. Newspapers’ iPad apps of use of these phones. The iPad has simply look like their online sites, which in turn continued this theme of ease of use. look like newspaper front pages. Where is the imagination or the innovation? Too In September 2010 Stephen Baker, vice many newspaper apps offer poor-quality president for industry analysis for the NPD multimedia. It reminds one of the early Group, released details of research into how years of television news when news pre- people used their iPads. Details can be senters read news agency copy on air. found at www.npdgroupblog.com/author/ stevebaker/. Baker found that early adopt- Remco Koster uses the analogy of potatoes ers were using their iPads for more than 18 to make various forms of food. If publishers hours a week, and for almost a third of provide content for iPad apps and other tab- them that time was increasing. “Clearly let platforms using pdf, they are trying to early adopters love their iPads and are find- 3/9 ing increased opportunities to use them.” WoodWing had launched more than 50 ap- Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Interestingly, a fifth of users’ time with the pand published more than 350 digital publi- Media Programme Asia iPad was spent in bed, only slightly less cations for the iPad worldwide. Newspapers www.kas.de/mediaasia than the 25 per cent of time people spent in the Asian region for whom Woodwing has with their iPad on a stationary surface. It created an iPad app include The Star (Ma- was obvious, Baker wrote, “that the iPad laysia); Kompas (Indonesia); the Mainichi Asia’s Media Innovators form factor makes people feel warm and Newspaper Company (Japan), and the cuddly”. South China Morning Post (Hong Kong, by Stephen Quinn and SAR). Details of European, American and UK Kim Kierans In a Zogby International survey published in media companies that have developed iPad October 2010, three in four respondents apps in partnership with Woodwing can be October 2010 – said devices like the iPad made them more found at the company’s web site at www. Chapter Nine productive. And 80 of the top 100 compa- woodwing.com/en/digital-magazine/ipad- nies in the Fortune 500 were testing and gallery. evaluating the iPad, according to Apple. Writing apps has become a profitable indus- Woodwing’s history and technology try.

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